Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s Tuition-free School to Close in 2026

By Evans Momodu, Published 15:08

The Primary School, founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan to serve low-income families, will close next year as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative shifts focus. Learn more about the impact below.

The Primary School, a tuition-free institution founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan to serve low-income families in California’s Bay Area, will permanently close at the end of the 2025-26 academic year, the school announced last week.

Launched in 2016 under the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the school was designed to integrate healthcare and education for children from birth through high school. Chan, a former pediatrician, previously described the school’s mission as a merger of her two primary passions: medicine and education.

In a letter to families, the Primary School’s leadership called the closure a “very difficult decision” but provided limited details. The move affects hundreds of students across two campuses in East Palo Alto and Hayward.

Parents were informed that the closure stems from CZI withdrawing its support, according to reports from the San Francisco Standard and The New York Times. A CZI spokesperson confirmed that the school’s board made the decision but declined to answer questions regarding the philanthropy’s funding for the school moving forward.

In an effort to support affected communities, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative pledged a $50 million donation to families impacted by the shutdown.

Carson Cook, the Primary School’s senior manager of strategy and advancement, told CNN that the school began notifying families last Thursday and that discussions are ongoing. However, Cook declined to elaborate on the timing or reasons behind the closure.

“Our model has always focused on supporting the whole family,” Cook said. “That commitment remains unchanged.”

The school’s closure comes as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative undergoes internal restructuring. In February, CZI announced cuts to both internal and external diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs — mirroring a similar shift at Meta earlier this year. Meta, under Zuckerberg’s leadership, has recently made several policy changes aligning more closely with the Trump administration’s priorities.

Zuckerberg and Chan, who attended President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2025 alongside other Big Tech leaders, have faced growing scrutiny over these strategic shifts in the post-Biden political environment.